BALTICA10

so you can distinguish him… He fell, they say, from
the sky, so the clouds washed his tail and coloured his
hoofs. And when deer appears from the forest then
Christmas will come’’ (Ragevičienė 1996, p.9).
The appearance of the deer before Christmas might
be linked with the heliacal rise of the stars of Scorpio.
This constellation is released from the rays of the Sun
and some of its stars appear over the south-east horizon
just before Christmas.
In various European nations there is a very close link
between the deer that brings back the Sun and the
Christmas patron (Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus, Papa
Noel, Father Christmas, etc.) who comes riding with
deer. Santa Claus resembles the image of the returning
Sun itself when he comes sitting in a sleigh with
his deer in harness, wearing red clothes and delivering
gifts. In Lithuanian folklore the image of the rising or
riding cart and the Sun delivering gifts is well known.
It is supposed that Lithuanian Christmas songs about
Kalėda, who comes riding in cart and delivering gifts,
are precisely about the Sun. It is so called owing to
the name of the festival itself: Christmas is the festival
for the Lithuanian Kalėdos (here Kalėda is the singular
form of the word Kalėdos). In folklore Kalėda is audibly
associated with the act of forging: Lith. Kal-ėda
“Xmas, Christmas” // kal-ti ‘to forge’, kal-vis ‘forger’.
This serves to confirm the association between Christmas
(Kalėdos) and the story of the cosmological forging
of the Sun.
Alongside Santa Claus, another character is worth researching
and that is Saint Hubert. He is linked with
November 3 rd , hunting, Christmas, and an unusual
deer, and is patron of metalworking (!). According to
the legend, on Christmas evening Hubert went hunting
and saw a deer with huge antlers with ten branches. He
got ready to throw a spear, but stumbled and fell down.
At that moment the deer became lit up and Hubert saw
a shining golden cross among his antlers. Here we have
a reference not to the Sun, but to the spiritual light of
faith, and accordingly, Jesus is traditionally represented
as the new Sun 2 .
Other research also proves the link between the returning
Sun and the rebirth of the world for a better life. T.
A. Bernstam researched the semantics of the Russian
youth games “jashcher” (pangolin) and “olen’” (deer)
by analysing the widespread image of a deer in various
nations. She came to the conclusion that this image
could be perceived as an embodied idea of spring, as
a symbol of the Sun sending its warmth and awakening
plants, animals and people (Bernshtam 1990, p.33).
V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov consider the deer a
zoomorphic symbol of spring and virility (Ivanov,
2
A. Lebeuf, personal communication, 2007.
Toporov 1965, p.130-131). For N. Laurinkiene the image
of the deer relates to the rebirth of the world. A
deer is a symbol of rebirth and renewal for Evenks,
Georgians, and some other nations. During the ritual
of the inkonipka spring festival, Evenks staged the
hunting of a cosmic deer. The cosmic deer was killed,
but later, miraculously revived together with nature. In
the Georgian traditions a deer was also related to the
spring festival. Georgians believed that on St. George’s
day a deity would send a deer for the participants of the
festival (Laurinkiene 2000, p.31).
We can see that a deer symbolizes light and the renewal
of the world. But it is also linked to the shortest
days and the lowest rise of the Sun in the dome of the
sky. For instance, an Irish poem of the 9 th century tells
of a deer that announces the coming winter: “I have
a message for you: / a deer was roaring, / the winter
is snowing / and summer left. / The winds are cold /
the sun is close to the earth -/ its way is short. / The
sea is rough. /…/ The frost has frozen the wings of the
birds. / This time is severe. / I have a message for you”
(Šletė 1984).
After the autumn equinox, when the path of the Sun
becomes shorter and the night becomes longer, the cosmic
deer disappears in the evening rays of the Sun, announcing
winter. During the winter solstice it emerges
in the morning dawn after about two and half months
of invisibility. The coincidence of the heliacal rise of
Scorpio with the winter solstice is perhaps the reason
for linking the stars of Scorpio with the mythical Deer
that played such an important role in the myth of the
returning Sun or recovery of the Sun (see also: Rappenglück
2008).
Taurus – a rider
It is known that the heliacal setting of the Pleiades,
a swarm of stars that belongs to the constellation of
Taurus, is linked to St. George’s day. This day is very
significant in the folk calendar, because it marks the
beginning of the summer season and agricultural work.
The rider that is depicted in Taurus is linked to iconography
of St. George. St. George is considered to
be a patron of horses and he is depicted as a rider on
a white horse. The rider in the BZ might represent a
pagan deity who was later replaced by the image of St.
George. Ūsiņš might have been such a deity in Latvian
mythology, Avsen’ or Jarilo – in Slavic mythology
and Perkūnas – in Lithuanian mythology. All of them
are represented as horse riders. In the reconstructed
Lithuanian mythological images, which interpret the
disappearance of the Pleiades after their heliacal setting,
Perkūnas emerges as a hero who goes down to
ARCHAEOLOGIA BALTICA 10
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III. ASTRO-
NOMICAL AND
ETHNOCOSMO-
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